Water is the medium through which we experience many of the impacts of climate change: in droughts or floods, in melting glaciers, rising sea levels and more. Accordingly, visualisations of water or its absence have been at the core of climate change media discourse for decades and have shaped popular perceptions of this crisis. In recent years, 'water resilience’ has increasingly been embraced as a tool for addressing the impacts of climate change and other ongoing stressors; not only as a tool for adaptation, but also as a tool for mitigation that addresses the water-energy nexus and greenhouse gas emissions from water infrastructure. However, water resilience scholarship is still primarily focused on the physical, technological and managerial aspects of the climate crisis, while issues of social justice, power and politics are at the margins of the debate. As such, the transformative potential of climate and water resilient futures goes unrecognised.

This symposium aims to bring together the overlapping conversations around resilience, climate, water, communication and politics in order to advance social justice and reduce climate-induced water vulnerability.

Keynote speakers:

• Prof. Joanne Garde-Hansen (University of Warwick), author of Media and Water: Communication, Culture and Perception
• Dr Filippo Menga (University of Bergamo), author of Water and Power in Central Asia and co-editor of Water, Technology and the Nation State

Full details on the sessions and a timetable will be published here and on https://scienv-com.eu/ by the end of April.

Timetable:

10:00-11:15 Opening Keynote Talk:

Opening greetings by Prof. Melissa Leach the Director of the Institute of Development Studies (IDS).

Keynote lecture by Prof. Joanne Garde-Hansen, University of Warwick: 'Amphibious Screens - Sustainable Cultures of Water'

11:30-12:50 Session 1: News, media and water resilience

12:50-13:20 Break

13:20-14:40 Session 2: Climate & water (in)justice

15:00-16:20 Session 3: Discourses of resilience technology and infrastructure

16:30-18:00 Closing Keynote Talk:

Dr Filippo Menga, University of Bergamo: ‘Spectacular Environments: Framing the Global Water Crisis in Troubled Times’

Links to attend will be sent to ticket holders by 10.5.2022

The event is organised by:

• the University of Reading - Department of Geograpgy and Environmental Science
• the Institute of Development Studies - Resource Politics Reaserch Cluster
• the Science and Environment Communication Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association